Most ink jet printers include some method of providing for a tray or bin to hold media once the media exits the printer. Early trays consisted of a flat tray that held the media in a flat fashion. The printing speed of early printers was slow enough so as to allow for the ink on a printed sheet of media to dry before the next sheet of media was positioned on top of the previous sheet.
As printing speeds increased, the ink on a printed sheet of media was unable to dry before the next sheet of media was positioned on top of the previous sheet. Hence, the ink would often smudge due to the contact with the next sheet of media. Some attempts have been made to address this problem by adjusting the drying properties of the ink. Other attempts have focused on methods of processing the media. For example, several printers have elaborate devices that tilt and kick the media onto staging platforms that are later actuated to allow the media to drop onto the surface of the tray. Other attempts have been directed to mechanisms which actively or passively hold the media such that the media's transverse cross section is concave.
Although the aforementioned attempts have addressed ink smudging problems with various degrees of success, they typically require complex, non-compact mechanisms or special media. Furthermore, the complexity of the mechanisms lend themselves to a higher probability of breakdown and higher costs. Also, the size of the mechanisms consume valuable desk space and are cumbersome to use. Thus, a need exists for a media exit tray with a simple design that addresses the ink drying problem, and is retractable within the printer to reduce the space required for the printer.